The Void Within Discussion

[Blue]

Not sure if this has yet been mentioned, but I noticed that the "Trophies Meter" indicates the top trophy is earned at 60,000 points, which means plenty of prize points for the best of the best items.

Frankly, you just need to get the 2nd 3rd level trophy at 5k to get a WODF. Reason why 2nd trophy is not enough is because it appears that you need to buy 15 unique items in the shop to complete the current act. If you buy one each of the cheapest items, you need to spend 872 points to complete the achievement.

[Chivewarrior]

There's an extent to which that depends on how many people they're expecting to get that far, though. Based on events so far I don't think we can take past prize shops as a guide.

[Pickles]

Posted: Thu Jun 27, 2024 11:39 am
This message appeared on the main page today when I visited:

The Council Assembles...
Leaders from across the globe, some of who haven’t set foot in the same room for years, have convened to form an unprecedented summit on the shores of Altador to address the troubling events that have befallen their lands.
Probably best to give them a moment to confer informally before the council begins their session. They have a great deal to catch up on…
Check back in a few hours once they’ve all had a chance to filter in and break the ice!

I guess there'll be more of an update later.
The main page image now features a SLEW of rulers crowding around the map, with Fyora and Dr Landelbrot up front, looking like they're going to initiate dialogue.

In other news, Coltzan's Shrine and The Discarded Magical Blue Grey Grundo Plushie of Prosperity now have a chance at giving out grey items. (Grey Shrine, Grey Shrine Popsicle, Discarded Faerie Artificer Plushie, Discarded Vira Plushie, Grey TDMBGPOP Plushie, Discarded Grey Yurble Plushie). A little delayed from when they actually went grey, but they're there now.

ETA:
Major update happened at 10am NST.
Dialogue (which shows up as Chapter 1 Part 6, but I recorded it first just in case I couldn't find it elsewhere, so here it is:

Queen Fyora: A council of this magnitude is unprecedented, but we have an urgent matter to attend to. There is more to this than just a rift opening in our sky…
King Altador: As King Skarl here can attest, the widespread reports of shopkeepers turning irreversibly grey and losing motivation to maintain their shops have escalated… now leaving an entire land devoid of colour.
King Skarl: All of Meridell turned Grey overnight! Even my top soldiers, Jeran and Tor, had their strength so sapped from the greyification they could barely lift a sword.
King Skarl: I myself can hardly eat these days. And none of the hundreds of paintbrushes I tried could change me!
Queen Amira: Are you why those things are so expensive?
Emperor Yun: A colour that can’t be changed? That’s unheard of!
Queen Nabile: Especially one that debilitates the Neopet after they are painted. Could this grey colour we are dealing with be imbued with some type of magic?
King Hagan: These covert grey attacks started shortly before that hole in the sky appeared. Surely, they are connected.
King Kelpbeard: Sounds to me like someone is laying the groundwork for an invasion…
King Jazan: We should prepare for that possibility. What concerns me is how they pulled it off. An entire land greyed out overnight, the entire populace left in a weakened state…
Queen Fyora: I believe we are dealing with formidable magic indeed. And likely an adversary who should not be underestimated…
King Altador: Could it be our fallen founder? Finally emerging from the shadows after all these years?
King Hagan: Doubtful. This persistent grey doesn’t seem like any magic we’ve seen her use before.
Queen Amira: Perhaps the return of another former foe then… Can we be absolutely certain Dr. Sloth is still secured within the Space Faerie’s Token?
Queen Fyora: I checked some time ago, and Mira has seen no signs of the not-so-good Doctor’s return. However, to be safe, she agreed to investigate some of his old haunts across the solar system just to be sure that none of his followers have set one of his schemes into motion.
King Roo: That rules him out! Any other guesses?
Lord Darigan: Well, I have firsthand experience with malevolent forces that are still roaming Neopia unchecked…
King Skarl: How dare you!
Lord Darigan: I was referring to the phantasmal calamities that poisoned the mind of my trusted general. However, if the shoe fits…
Queen Amira: Please! Our first step should be determining exactly what we are dealing with.
Emperor Yun: I concur. We need more information. To better understand what is happening, and how to fix it.
King Altador: I had the very same thought, which is why I enlisted Altador’s resident magic authority to help us shed some light on this matter. Jerdana will be working closely with Dr Landelbrot to investigate the cause of the rift and greying out of Neopians.
Jerdana: Neither Fyora nor myself are familiar with this magic, so we have the Library Faerie searching through her records to see if anything matches. We could be dealing with ancient sorcery from a long-forgotten age of Neopia.
Dr. Landelbrot: Or perhaps, from an entirely different planet altogether! Based on the unusual frequencies of the gravitational waves Scintilly detected emerging from the rift in the sky, whatever world lies on the other side of that rift operates vastly differently from our own. Why their laws of physics alone might seem paradoxical to us!
Jerdana: Keep in mind these are all just theories. Until we gather enough concrete data, we can’t be sure what we are dealing with.
King Hagan: I assume you two have a plan in mind for uncovering more details about this enigmatic rift?
Jerdana: That we do. Since the rift appeared, Neopians across the globe have reported seeing strange fizzling pieces of an otherworldly substance leaking through the breach. Although they seem to dissipate after 24 hours, Dr. Landelbrot here has been working on a specialised container capable of storing these mysterious fragments for an extended period of time so that we can better study them.
Dr. Landelbrot: Indeed! It took some trial and error, but by reinforcing glass with layers of transparent deepsea polymers that can withstand incredible pressures, I was able to fabricate a chamber that should keep these energy fragments contained for experimentation.
Jerdana: We’ve been referring to these fragments as “void essence” due to their mysterious nature and murky appearance. However, we will need much more before we can make any real headway on our tests.
Queen Fyora: How much of this void essence will we need to collect?
Dr. Landelbrot: For an in-depth analysis of such a foreign substance, we will need to accumulate vast amounts of it so that we can properly test it repeatedly under controlled conditions. It’s difficult to quantify exactly how much with so many unknown variables…
Jerdana: So, essentially, we are going to need A LOT of it.
Queen Amira: The citizens of Sakhmet have always come together to support each other during times of crisis. Could we ask the public to assist us?
Dr. Landelbrot: Now that is an intriguing idea… The rift does seem to be spewing void essence across all of Neopia, so appealing to the masses may be the most efficient way to collect as much as possible.
King Kelpbeard: If we collect enough, could we use it to create a weapon to defend ourselves?
King Roo: Or a game? To cheer us up!
Queen Fyora: First and foremost, is it safe? Do we know if this essence could harm Neopians?
Jerdana: Although we can’t discern much from the rapidly dissipating void essence the good Doctor provided me with, I am confident that it will not pose a threat to any Neopians.
King Hagan: How can you be certain that we don’t need any type of special equipment to handle them?
Jerdana: Because they aren’t meant to be in our world. Thus, they can’t persist here for long.
Dr. Landelbrot: Precisely! This void essence seems to be nothing more than runoff, bits of extra energy leaking through whatever that rift is into our world that dissipates soon after arrival.
Jerdana: Dissolving fast as snowflakes in Moltara.
Dr. Landelbrot: Which is why we needed the Void Essence container! The particles need a vessel to keep them tied to Neopia.
Jerdana: So even if these particles were somehow harmful, they and any magic with them is dissolving faster than they could affect any Neopians. Additionally, I will use shielding enchantments to ensure Dr. Landelbrot is able to experiment on them under safe conditions.
(...): Moment of reflective silence
King Altador: Your meticulous efforts are appreciated Jerdana. As are yours Dr. Landelbrot! It seems your explanations have quelled our fears.
King Skarl: Humph, so now that the experts are focused on the hole in the sky, who’s going to get this grey off of me?
Queen Fyora: Worry not King Skarl, I’ve already sent for some help with our colour conundrum. I suspect we will need some fresh faces to rise to this challenge…

Once you get through the dialogue, a pop up screen explains the community effort section:

Void Essence Collection
Hello Neopians! If I could please pry you away from your busy lives for but a moment, there is a vital scientific inquiry underway that requires your assistance. With your help, we could have the means to better understand this puzzling rift threatening to tear our sky asunder.
I only ask that you collect samples of the harmless detritus seeping from this fracture, which we’ve designated as void essence, wherever you can find them across Neopia. Based on the rate and trajectory that the rift is leaking residual energy, multiple conglomerations of void essence should appear across the same group of Neopian lands each day.
Bring me enough samples each week, and I shall have Scintilly here reward you with 5 Plot Points that can be spent on any number of unusual items we’ve found tumbling through the rift. As an additional token of appreciation for your efforts, we will also grant you a special prize from the eclectic collection Scintilly has amassed over years of oddities popping through our portal!
One final point on the matter- be sure to check all over Neopia if void essence seems scarce in the same lands as time passes. Conglomerations of void essence may start trickling into entirely new sets of lands as the rift expands over time!

Refreshing the main page shows this now:

Queen Fyora: We’ll need some time to collect more void essence for Dr. Landelbrot’s experiments. Return soon!

In the area to the right of the bottom, you'll see a tracker:
Void Essence Collection Resets 167 : 36 (So in a week)
Must collect 80% void essence to earn weekly bonus reward.
Community Goal: 10M

Clicking on the ? by Community Goal gives another tracker window:

Community Milestones
These milestones mark pivotal moments in the Void Essence activity.
??? - 10M
??? - ???
??? - ???
??? - ???
??? - ???
Total Essence Collected:
10051
Keep your sights set on the ultimate goal as you strive to claim fantastic rewards!

So it looks like prizes will unlock a total of 5 times for community milestones.

There appear to be 4 in Meridell, 3 in Brightvale, and 3 in Roo Island, for a total of 10 per day. The goal is to get up to 10 million community-wide. Each gives you 5 points, so you can earn 50 points today, bring the total up to 66 points.

Finding the essence gives this pop up:

Well Spotted Eyrie Eye!

You quickly deliver the void essence to Dr. Landelbrot before it fizzles out of existence, earning yourself a tidy 5 plot points!

I guess we'll see if each "day" for the timer changes at 10am NST or midnight. There are only 7 slots in the collection section.

I think that covers it all for now? I've edited this like, 3 times to include everything.

[Blue]

Thanks Pickles! The links to the void essence locations were invaluable for me today (Travel day...) Tomorrow, it will likely need to be done 100% on my phone... :/

As of this post time, the community has collected 63311...

[Siniri]

Thanks, Pickles. Things worked a little differently on my phone, but it was quick, and I saw everything but the coming soon gathering (was it the same image as on the start page for the dialogue now?).

186,993/10,000,000

That's less than 2%, so it could take us 50+ days to reach the first goal. Unless the ACGs run their side bots. I'd rather we all miss out than have them cheating again.

[Chivewarrior]

Looks like it is indeed resetting at 10AM NST, seeing as we're past midnight NST and I cannot collect more.

[Pickles]

It did not reset at 10am. Sorry for the later notice, but this was on discord:

Shoutouts to those who pointed out that the weekly timer was counting down to 10am. Did not account for this when we decided to push the release back to our awake hours and all the days were going to be resetting at 10am indefinitely. (^:
SO congrats, y'all get an extra day 1! This day will reset at midnight tonight.
(And this will probably be announced in some official capacity in the morning, probably added to the FAQ!)
This was a very last minute change as in like 30 minutes ago when I read these messages and realized there was gonna be a problem, sorry that we couldn't give a warning ahead of time! :')To be fair I was not really working at this hour necessarily I was just reading this channel in my own free time, but unless you count the 30 minutes I spent panicking trying to figure out what action to take it only took me about 30 seconds of actual work!

So, they reset the timer (if you look, you'll see it regained some hours) so the first day will run until midnight tonight. In other words, we got 1 1/2 days for day 1 again.

So...no new void essence to collect today! We're now at 432,289/10,000,000. I find it amusing to click on the community goal tracker and watching that one update live.
If we get about 400k per day, that should put us at 10 mil in about 25 days. So...better than 50 at least?

TNT Dingo also answered some other questions:

Regarding Community Goal: Oh. Yeah, if this is not clear, I think we're going to add messaging either in the FAQ or the info popup later (today hopefully) but this is not a weekly goal!
Don't want to give too much away about anything, but just know you have much more than 1 week to meet the community milestones!! (:
Hmm, yeah, the fact that the timer is above the goal does make it very misleading... The timer is for the week. To be perfectly honest, I haven't read the FAQ so I'm not sure how much of this is explained, but the tracker module on the hub page resets every week. The tracker is mostly meant to track your progress towards the weekly bonus prize. The community goal is completely separate! But this is useful feedback, I can let the team know that this is confusing a lot of people!
Regarding the 15 different items achievement: Not totally sure if I can answer this one, but I'll take the heat if not cause I think we have answered most of these types of questions so far and I don't want yall stressing over it. The achievements can be accomplished at any point in the plot even if the act has ended.
The only achievement that is time sensitive (well, lemme back track that in case I'm wrong and say, the only one so far) is the one that required you to accomplish everything in the first week of the plot's release
Regarding not having a total number of essence that you personally have collected: Yeah we realized this as well and that's in our list of things already! I agree that it would be nice to know how many you have collected in total, especially for tracking your progress towards the achievements! There's not even a weekly total, only daily
Regarding the FAQ talking about the prize shop opening today: Yeah uhh, I don't even know why that one is there, there is no prize shop for this activity, truly a head scratcher on all fronts.
Oh but to answer the question, I am not sure if I can clarify anything about the community prizes, but I will note that people are asking in case we want to make that clearer!
Regarding whether or not 60k points is the max: I can confirm that I cannot confirm. (^:

The Void Essence FAQ is now working as well. I will edit the relevant ones into the main post, but here's a quick recap:
The Void Essence Prize Pool will grow as each new act is introduced, void essence can basically be found anywhere (probably only maps?), the weekly bonus prize (for collecting 80% off your possible essence, AKA at least 56 out of the possible 70) is plot points plus one item from the void essence collection prize pool, and void essence collection will continue THROUGH THE WHOLE PLOT. At least collecting 10 a day isn't too terrible of a grind? But, assuming 10 months with an average 30 day month...that's about 15,000 plot points right there. Plus whatever bonuses we get, etc.
I feel like it will get old pretty fast, though.

[Siniri]

I just hope they don't randomize the locations across the whole map for each person. That could get old really fast. But if it's just clicking ten links a day, that's just another daily.

I'm glad they extended day 1.

[Pickles]

Sorry for this, but I edited my post to include more info from TNT-Dingo while you were posting, Siniri. He answered several questions that I felt might be relevant to know.

I'm glad they extended day 1, too. I'll try to make sure that the locations get posted daily, when possible. I might not always be the fasted one here, so please feel free to post them if you beat me to it!

[Siniri]

Thanks, Pickles! I dozed off and woke up a few minutes ago and double checked that I had finished all my dailies. Decided to grab the new day's essences before going back to sleep.

They're all in the same locations as yesterday, Eyrie Eyes!

5 more plot points. I'm at 116.

[Pickles]

In addition to grabbing more essences (Meridell, 3 in Brightvale, and 3 in Roo Island), there's another part to the chapter up!

Chapter 1 Part 7

The seventh page to the first chapter is up.
Click on the "Collect Prize." This will ONLY show up after you have moused over/clicked on every single panel of the fourth page of the comic.

Your dedication is admirable. Here is a gift for your efforts!

Baelias Backyard Background
This item has been added to your inventory.

Total possible points for today is: 117

[Blue]

Thanks Pickles! The links are invaluable right now while traveling. Roo Island has a weird lag and I was not sure if I correctly collected the 3 Void Elements, but my total matches the 117 that you posted, so all is good!

[Pickles]

Essences are still in (Meridell, Brightvale, and Roo Island).
Total possible points for today is: 167

[Blue]

Thanks! Much appreciated

[Pickles]

Things were down yesterday here at PPT, but the plot continued.
Perhaps you should check in on Baelia? A quick trip to Faerieland to visit the Grey Faerie might help clear things up!
Dialogue....listed as Chapter 1 Page 8

Tavi: Thought I might find you here.
Baelia: Oh! I’m sorry Tavi… I just-
Tavi: No need to be sorry. Trouble sleeping again?
Baelia: I never feel more awake than when my head hits the pillow. Soon as I close my eyes, my brain decides to worry about everything in existence.
Tavi: Well, you’ve been that way since I’ve known you. Did you have bad dreams… before…
Baelia: Ehm, well-
Naia: Baelia! Tavi! So sorry to intrude so late, but this couldn’t wait until morning.
Baelia: Naia! What’s the matter?
Naia: I’m not entirely sure! But it’s very strange. Unnatural even! They won’t change colours anymore!
Tavi: Woah! It’s okay, Naia, just take a deep breath.
Naia: You’re right. Apologies, this whole situation really has me all wound up.
Baelia: What’s going on Naia?
Naia: You may have heard, but recently, Neopets across the globe have been painted grey while they slept. And now all of Meridell lost colour in the dead of the night while a rift opened up in the sky!
Baelia: Grey?
Tavi: Lost colour?
Naia: Yes! Which is strange in and of itself, but the most mystifying part is… this grey colour, I can’t change it!
Baelia: Even with the Rainbow Fountain?
Naia: Not a bit! No matter how many times we try, the Rainbow Fountain can’t seem to wash off that grey colour…
Tavi: How is that possible?
Naia: It shouldn’t be! I’ve never seen a colour that couldn’t be changed by the Rainbow Fountain. It can return colour to anyone! Well, except for…
Baelia: …a grey faerie.
Naia: Yes, well... I’m sorry Baelia. I know this is an uncomfortable subject for you. It’s just I had no idea where else to turn.
Baelia: What use would I be? I wouldn’t even know where to start.
Naia: A council of Neopian leaders has already been called together and they have Dr Landelbrot investigating the rift in the sky. However, when I asked about how to rid us of this stubborn grey, Fyora herself suggested turning to you!
Baelia: Fyora? I hate to let her down… and I really do wish I could help you, but I can’t even help myself. We’ve been trying for years now, but here I am. Still grey…
Tavi: Supposedly, only a new name can lift the curse that Jennumara placed on her long ago. But, no matter how many names I try calling her…
Baelia: Still grey.
Tavi: Well, maybe this mystery is just what we need! If we can find a way to recolour the Neopians who turned Grey, it might help you too.
Baelia: Nothing else has been working…
Tavi: Come on Baelia, let’s at least try to help.
Baelia: I suppose we couldn’t make things worse…
Naia: Really? That would be wonderful. Something tells me you two are the right ones for the job!
Tavi: I’ll start packing! If we leave now, we can be passing through Brightvale in a few days!
Baelia: Sounds like an awful lot of walking to me…
Tavi: Come on, it’ll be fun! You’ll see, we’ll be in Meridell in no time.
Baelia: Well, you have been trying to get me to hike with you for years…
Tavi: That’s right! And you can’t flake on this one, Queen Fyora’s orders!
Baelia: Okay, okay! I guess I could stand to get out of the house.
Tavi: That’s the right attitude! Come on, let’s get packing!

Essences are still in (Meridell, Brightvale, and Roo Island).
Prize points possible: 278